This guy is running for president with the goal of using science to cure death and aging

Zoltan Istvan is a the founder of the Transhumanist
Party, a political party that sees science and technology as the
solution to most of the world's problems.Lisa Memmel

Taxes, climate change, the wage gap. These are just a few of the
issues that both Republican and Democratic presidential
candidates are expected to tackle during their campaigns.

But presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan has another policy issue at the top of
his list: death.

Istvan is the founder of the Transhumanist Party, a political party focused on
using science and technology to solve most of the world's
problems. With his campaign, Istvan seeks to make longevity
research just as big of an issue as social security or
immigration.

For Istvan, aging and death are the biggest plague of our time.
And technology is the cure.

“A big part of my own campaign is
that aging is actually a disease and not something natural,”
Istvan told Tech Insider. “In the 21st century to not be using
science and technology for everyone’s direct health and longevity
is something that should not be allowed anymore.”

Unfortunately, the government doesn’t see it this way and is
investing very little in longevity research, Istvan said.

So the 42-year-old is setting out across the country next month
to campaign on the platform of using technology to live forever.
But his bus tour will be a bit more flashy than the rest.

Istvan — along with some embedded journalists, scientists, and
other transhumanists — will be touring the nation in a converted
RV disguised as a coffin — a reminder that the Grim Reaper
is coming unless we take action to stop it.

"We have a real chance of stopping death"

Istvan and his supporters will kick off their tour in the
so-called “Immortality Bus” on the west coast, stopping in cities
across the nation sounding the alarm that there are not enough
resources currently being invested in fighting death.

Istvan is currently working on transforming this RV
into the "Immortality Bus."Zoltan
Istvan

Istvan, like other transhumanists, said he believes that merging
technology with human biology can radically extend life. For
example, using bionic organs as transplants when our natural
organs fail. But this kind of life extension technology will only
become possible when people demand that more money be spent on
longevity research.

“I think people have just been conditioned to believe that this
is just a natural part of existence, that that’s the program,”
Istvan said. “And so our job is to uncondition that. To tell them
actually it was the program until we reached the 21st century and
now all of a sudden we realize that with genetics and bionics and
robotics that we have a real chance of stopping death and
treating it as something much more similar to a disease than some
natural phenomenon.”

For the fiscal year of 2015, Congress allocated about $609.3
billion or 16% of all federal spending to the military. Total
federal funds invested in the sciences was just $29.81 billion,
or .78% of the same lot. And just a tiny fraction of that, if
any, is being spent directly on things that qualify as longevity
research, he said.

“We are not spending any of the money directly that could make us
live considerably longer. For example, robotic hearts or 3D
printed organs,” he said. “There are things we can do out there
if we just had the money if the scientists just had the
resources, that they could tackle.”

The final design of the
"Immortality Bus."Rachel
Lyn

Istvan said that with an investment of $1 trillion in
longevity research, the aging process could be stopped in just a
decade. And in 20 years, researchers could even be capable of
reversing the process, he said.

The "Transhumanist Bill of Rights"

Eventually, Istvan’s bus party will make its way to the
nation’s capital to deliver a bill that requires the government
support a longer lifespan via science and technology.

“We are going to end in DC, walk up the steps of the US capitol
building and deliver what we consider a Transhumanist Bill of
Rights,” he said. “There needs to be some type of mandate that
says it’s illegal to stop or not put forth resources into this
type of science, because by not putting money and resources into
this type of science you are effectively shortening people's’
lives.”

For example, when George W. Bush vetoed bills related to spending
federal funds on stem cell research during his presidency,
transhumanists would consider that a crime, Istvan said.

While Istvan acknowledges that he doesn’t have any real chance of
winning, he said he does hope that his audacious campaign gets a
conversation started among other candidates about the future of
technology in our country.

“When you are a third-party
candidate, half of what you do is entertainment to be honest
because you are actually trying to spread a message knowing you
have very little chance of winning,” he said. “I know it’s
probably going to fall on quite deaf ears, but we are going to
deliver it nonetheless.”